U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to bring a billion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC has cast a shadow over the British broadcaster's future, but it could also be a bluff with little legal merit. The president's lawyer sent the threat to the BBC over the way a documentary edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a mob of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump faces fundamental challenges to getting a case to court, never mind taking it to trial. He would also have to deal with the harsh glare of publicity around his provocative pep talk the day Congress was voting to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
President Donald Trump says he's taking over Washington's police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard in the hopes of reducing crime, even as city officials stressed crime is already falling in the nation's capital. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she will follow the law even as she indicated that Trump's actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections from such actions. The president, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said Monday he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.
On July 22, 1933, Aviator Wiley Post landed at Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes.
On July 19, 1848, the first "Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of Woman" convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York.
President Donald Trump's unconventional approach to clemency has spread hope among federal prisoners and formerly incarcerated people around the United States, prompting a wave of petitions carefully crafted to capture his attention. Like other presidents, Trump has drawn criticism for granting pardons and commutations to political allies. But legal scholars say the Republican president also has cast aside the traditional criteria and a clemency process historically overseen by nonpolitical Justice Department personnel. Trump has pardoned and commuted the sentences of more than 1,600 people since January. Administration officials say Trump decides on clemency requests after they're vetted by the White House Counsel's Office, the White House pardon czar and the Justice Department.
The Senate has narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as as President Donald Trump's FBI director. The 51-49 vote Thursday puts the Trump loyalist atop the nation's premier federal law enforcement agency despite Democrats' doubts about his qualifications and concerns he'll do Trump's bidding and go after the Republican president's adversaries. Patel has fiercely criticized an agency that's now gripped by turmoil. Trump's Justice Department has forced out a group of senior FBI officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
On Feb. 13, 1945, Allied forces in World War II began a three-day bombing raid on Dresden, Germany, killing as many as 25,000 people and triggering a firestorm that swept through the city center.
